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Buick MacKane - The Pawn Shop Years

The most memorable True Believers performance I ever witnessed was on a hot June night 12 years ago at the fabled Continental Club in Austin, Texas a show that concluded with the Believers, Doctors Mob and Scratch Acid all onstage together in varying states of sobriety slogging through Gary Glitters

Chris Whitley - Terra Incognita

Chris Whitley - Terra Incognita

Great records always push a feeling onto the listener, and often that feeling is strongly associated with a time and place. Who can listen to a Beach Boys hit and not think of summer sun? Can't you just smell the cigarettes and beer of CBGBs when listening to

Nanci Griffith - Blue Roses From The Moon

I owe Nanci Griffith a debt of gratitude. First, she was my sister in arms for years of I-Am-Too-Strong-To-Be-This-Lovelorn. Second, she was my introduction to future songwriting heroes such as Townes Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris and Guy Clark. For these reasons, I will forever cut her slack in the sappy

Townes Van Zandt - The Highway Kind

Released on the heels of Sugar Hills reissue of Rear View Mirror, this album isnt the best place to start with Townes, but its a fitting way to end. Mixing live performances of some of Van Zandts bleaker material with studio covers in a similar vein, The Highway Kind is

Gene Clark - This Byrd Has Flown: The Essential Gene Clark

While he certainly wrote a handful of enduring classics as a member of the Byrds, it's surprising that Gene Clark has never been given the recognition for his solo work that the music so obviously deserves. Between 1966 (the year he quit the Byrds, at the peak of

Tim Lee - All That Stuff

Tim Lee was half of the Windbreakers, a Mississippi-based duo who released seven raggedly charming records in the '80s and early '90s. Lee and partner Bobby Sutliff's main gift was their ability to reveal, within a hook-laden pop framework, a welcome edginess when things threatened to

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs - 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered: The Essential Flatt & Scruggs

If it's true that Bill Monroe invented bluegrass, it's equally true that it wouldn't have happened the way it did without guitarist/lead singer Lester Flatt and banjo player/baritone singer Earl Scruggs. As members of Monroe's 1946-48 Blue Grass Boys, they